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Generalship in Ancient Greece, Rome and Byzantium

Edited by Shaun Tougher and Richard Evans

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£105.00

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About this book

Considers the ideals and realities of generalship across the Greek, Roman and Byzantine worlds
  • Addresses a neglected aspect in the study of ancient warfare
  • Analyses views generated in different ancient cultures about the theory and practice of generalship
  • Brings together the latest research on generalship from a wide spectrum of academic experts
  • Contains discussion of the theory and practice of generalship in other contemporary cultures including Persia, Arabia and China

This volume is unique in addressing a key aspect of ancient warfare across a broad chronological and cultural span, focusing on generalship from Archaic Greece to the Byzantine Empire in the twelfth century AD. Across this broad span, it explores a range of ideas on how to be a successful general, showing how the art of generalship – a profession that has been occupied variously by the political elite, the mercenary soldier and the eunuch – evolved and adapted to shifting notions of how a good military leader should act.

Highlighting developments and continuities in this age-old profession across the Graeco-Roman world, this volume brings together the latest research on generalship from both established and new voices. The chapters examine both ideals of generalship and specific examples of generals, considering the principles underpinning the roles they played and the qualities desired in them. They discuss in particular the intersection between military and political roles, the addresses delivered by generals to their troops, the virtue of courage and the commemoration of victory as well as defeat. In addition, contributors consider cross-cultural comparisons of generalship, with specific chapters devoted to Persian, Arab and Chinese views.

Reviews

[Generalship in Ancient Greece, Rome and Byzantium] makes an important contribution towards rewriting the history of the development of archaic warfare: an exploration of the literary construct of the glorious defeat at Thermopylae, which turned a terrible defeat into an act of heroism; an examination of the absence of distinction between military and diplomatic skills among the early Seleucid court elite; and a fascinating exploration of how Middle Republican generals acquired the skills and knowledge to conduct their campaigns, despite their limited terms of office.
This stimulating and innovative collection of essays takes a traditional subject in ancient military history and reinvigorates it by shifting discussion away from a focus on ‘great commanders’ to analysis of ancient ideals and principles of military leadership, while also contextualising this discussion within a broader chronological and geographical framework.
Table of contents

Acknowledgements List of ContributorsAbbreviations

Introduction: Generalship in Ancient Greece, Rome and Byzantium - Richard Evans and Shaun Tougher

1. Kings, Tyrants and Bandy-Legged Men: Generalship in Archaic Greece - Cezary Kucewicz

2. Commemorating Thermopylae: The andreia of Glorious Defeat as a Literary Construct - Richard Evans

3. Plato on Military and Political Leadership - Nicholas Rockwell4. Reconstructing Early Seleucid Generalship, 301-222 BC - Alex McAuley

5. Generalship and Knowledge in the Middle Roman Republic - Michael Taylor

6. Command Assessment in the Bellum Gallicum: Fortuna and Caesar - David Nolan

7. Remembering P. Quinctilius Varus: Opposing Perspectives on the Memory and Memorialization of the Failed General in the Annales of Tacitus - Daniel Crosby

8. Decius and the Battle near Abritus - David Potter

9. Ammianus and the Heroic Mode of Generalship in the Fourth Century AD - Conor Whately

10. The Fine Line between Courage and Fear in the Vandal War - Michael Stewart

11. The Generalship of John Troglita – Art in Artifice - Martine de Marre

12. The Best of Men: Cross-Cultural Command in the 630s AD - Eve MacDonald

13. Tian Yue Marshals His Tropes: Public Persuasion and the Character of Military Leadership in Late Tang China - David A. Graff

14. The Ideal of the Roman General in Byzantium: The Reception of Onasander’s Strategikos in Byzantine Military Literature - Philip Rance

15. Generalship and Gender in Byzantium: Non-Campaigning Emperors and Eunuch Generals in the Age of the Macedonian Dynasty - Shaun Tougher

16. The Politics of War: Virtue, Tyche, Persuasion, and the Byzantine General - Dimitris Krallis

EpilogueBibliographyIndex

About the contributors

Shaun Tougher

Shaun Tougher is Professor of Late Roman and Byzantine History at Cardiff University. He has a BA from Queen’s University Belfast and a PhD from the University of St Andrews. He works especially on dynastic history (primarily the Constantinian and Macedonian dynasties) and on gender and society (notably eunuchs, but also imperial women and questions of masculinity). His publications include The Reign of Leo VI (886-912) (Leiden, 1997), Julian the Apostate (Edinburgh, 2007), The Eunuch in Byzantine History and Society (London and New York, 2008), and The Roman Castrati: Eunuchs in the Roman Empire (London and New York, 2021).

Richard Evans

Richard Evans taught at the University of South Africa and Cardiff University. In recent years he has been Honorary Research Fellow in the Department of Biblical and Ancient Studies, University of South Africa. His research interests have encompassed much of the political and military history of Greece, the Roman Republic and especially Syracuse. He has also published on the histories of Sybaris, Asia Minor and Pergamum, and the works of Diodorus Siculus and Herodotus. Recent publications include: Ancient Syracuse: From Foundation to Fourth Century Collapse (Routledge, 2016) and A History of Pergamum: Beyond Hellenistic Kingship (Bloomsbury, 2012).